From contenders to favorites

ATLANTA -- The events of Sept. 11 not only forced a change in Georgia Tech's football schedule, it completely changed the Yellow Jackets' mind-set.

The three-week stretch between the team's last game at Navy and today's assignment against Clemson now is regarded as another training camp.

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The three games played before the terrorist attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania now is considered a preseason.

The final nine games -- eight against fellow Atlantic Coast Conference teams and the annual rivalry against Georgia -- now is the team's regular season.

And perhaps the biggest change is the Yellow Jackets' status in the league. Without taking an official snap since Sept. 8, Georgia Tech has moved to the frontrunner's role in the ACC.

The ninth-ranked Yellow Jackets stood still and the rest of the projected ACC leaders fell off the pace last week -- Florida State losing 41-9 at North Carolina, and Clemson losing 26-24 at home to Virginia. The picture is clear: If Georgia Tech wins all eight of its ACC games -- and they probably will be favored in each -- they will win the league and an automatic berth into one of the Bowl Championship Series games. Better yet, an 8-0 conference record, plus a win over Georgia, likely would propel the team into the national championship game at the Rose Bowl.

"We were all shocked," junior free safety Jeremy Muyres said of the losses by Florida State and Clemson. "(Being the team to beat) has its pros and cons. Everybody's going to come after you. You like to sneak up on people, but as a competitor you like to be in the role as the one to beat."

Getting to the top of the ACC heap was easy. Georgia Tech didn't have to do a thing. Now comes the hard part: staying there -- and doing it following the longest regular-season layoff in more than 60 years.

Tech coach George O'Leary said he's not concerned with polls and projections. In fact, he pointed to the losses by Florida State and Clemson as reasons not to look at anything other than the next game.

"The kids take on the demeanor of the coaching staff. If they don't, they don't stay around," O'Leary said. "I'm not smart enough to look a couple games ahead. You play one game at a time for a reason. Records and polls don't mean much unless you win. What happened last Saturday proves you better show up every Saturday.

"I mentioned (the Florida State and Clemson losses) briefly in our meeting (on Sunday), but after that, the only thing we've talked about is this week's game against Clemson. The kids know we have to take it one week at a time and not worry about all the other stuff."

It's been difficult for the Yellow Jackets to get back to full speed following the long layoff. O'Leary has resisted playing his starting units against the scout squads in practice. In a break of the team's usual routine, he's worked the first offense against the first defense.

"My attitude is the scout squad doesn't always give you a good look," O'Leary said. "If they were good enough, they wouldn't be on the scout squad."

There have been other breaks from the team's routine.

"We didn't treat the layoff like a bowl game (where there's a month between games)," O'Leary said. "If it were a bowl game, I would have practiced the younger guys a lot harder. We would have done some two-a-days so they can get more reps. We didn't do that.

"We gave the kids some time off so they could get some rest and work on their academics. We were a little tired. We've been going at it since Aug. 1."

There's a good reason the Yellow Jackets didn't follow the same routine during their time away from football, which included a Sept. 15 game against Florida State that was postponed until Dec. 1, and a scheduled bye on Sept. 22, as they do for a bowl game. O'Leary's teams have lost two-consecutive bowl appearances and have been lethargic in both.

"We took some time off, and when we got back to practicing, we did a lot more scrimmaging so we could simulate the speed of the game," he said. "We've been practicing at full speed. It's good to get back to playing the games. Practice is hard. We went through the preseason so we could play games. Now they had to go through another preseason."

For a lot of the starters, it's been more than a month since they've worked up a sweat. The starters played most of the season-opener Aug. 26 against Syracuse, but they played only sparingly in blowout victories over The Citadel and Navy. The first-string offense, for example, has played a combined three quarters in the last month.

"The (starting) defense hasn't had a lot of work, either," O'Leary said. "They've played only about a half, maybe three quarters, of a game since Syracuse. We played 68-70 players in our last two games. It was good for some of the younger guys to get some work. Now we've got to get the starters back up to speed."